Nintendo Plans $25m Early Ad Blitz for New Game Boy

News, 20 April 2001

Nintendo is planning a $25 million marketing blitz for its new portable games console Game Boy Advance nearly two months before the product goes on sale on June 13.

Eager to attract customers before the hype for Microsoft’s Xbox builds to a crescendo this fall, Nintendo intends to start the push on April 30 with TV, print, outdoor and online ads following over the next few months.

The campaign by Leo Burnett USA in Chicago, employs the theme Life Advanced to demonstrate how Game Boy Advance can brighten the least interesting situations, becoming “a solution to your boredom, no matter what age you are,” according to Nintendo’s vp–marketing and corporate communications George Harrison.

The ads are also intended to appeal to a broad demographic, in order to make the brand “omnipresent”. Only 40% of current Game Boy users are over 18 – something Nintendo wants to change with the new, colour-screen console.

The campaign includes billboards and airport ads in eleven markets plus dioramas in ninety shopping malls, TV spots on the Channel One network, print ads in computer game and entertainment titles and guerilla marketing efforts whereby passers-by are encouraged to sample the product’s delights.

In addition, Game Boy Advance will feature in McDonalds’ annual Monopoly promotion; while two other undisclosed promotional partners will join the campaign over the summer. Marketing spend on the console is expected to hit $75m by the end of the year.

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